On the comparison of spatial interpolation methods of marine temperature and salinity based on Arcgis software: a case study of Tianjin coastal waters in the Bohai Bay

The paper attempts to make a general comparison on different spatial interpolation methods by a case of Marine temperature and salinity (T-S) of Tianjin coastal waters in the Bohai bay. It discusses four spatial interpolation methods: Inverse Distance Weighing (IDW), Radial Basis Function (RBF), Ordinary Kriging and Universal Kriging. Marine temperature and salinity of 15 stations during summer and winter cruises of 2006 in Tianjin coastal waters are employed in this study. It carries out the four spatial interpolation methods in the 14 stations which are compared and validated by the other surplus 1 stations. The criteria (Mean Error, Mean Absolute Error, and Root Mean Square Error) demonstrates that Ordinary Kriging and IDW methods are both suitable for marine temperature which were sampled during summer and winter cruises of 2006 and for marine salinity which were sampled during summer cruise of 2006, specially IDW method is appropriate for marine salinity during winter cruise of 2006. As a result, Simple Kriging method slightly is superior to IDW methods, while Universal Kriging method is inferior to Simple Kriging and IDW methods, and RBF method is the bad method in Tianjin coastal waters in the Bohai Bay.